"Yes, I can see that," observed Martha dryly. "Well, I'm comin' to-morra again. You can tell Miss Katherine. But in the meantime, if you was plannin' to go home to-night, _doncher_. Just you stay right on deck here all of the time, from this on, do you understand?"
"Because I _tell_ you, that's why. You might be needed on short notice. Now, are you goin' to do as I say or ain't you?"
"That's a good girl. An'--an' if I should be needed for anythin', any time, just you come for me, quick as you can put, be it day or night, an' I'll drop everythin' an' come."
"Say, you give me the creeps, Mrs. Slawson."
Martha laughed. "Well, I'm glad if I got _some_ kinda move on you, young lady. You certaintly need it."
But as she went her way home, Martha was in no laughing mood.
"I got the black dog on my shoulder, for fair," she muttered, hurrying her steps, spurred on by an unreasoning longing to be home, to see Sam, the children, even Ma.
Long before she reached the Lodge, she saw the light from the sitting-room lamp streaming out genially into the chill dusk of the early autumn evening. It had a reassuring welcome in it that fairly re-established her with the world on the old terms of good-cheer and common-sense optimism. The broad, benevolent smile for which Madam Crewe had so often derided her, was on her face as she turned the knob of the sitting-room door, pushed it open. A second, and the smile was there no longer.
"What's the matter?" Martha asked, looking from Ma to Mrs. Peckett, from Mrs. Peckett to Sam Slawson, in a puzzled, wondering way.
Ma sat cowering in her accustomed place. Mrs. Peckett, deeply flushed, was standing near the window, while Sam, towering over all, showed a livid, threatening face, the like of which Martha had never seen in all the years of their life together.
Again the question went unanswered, but after a moment, her husband, with a gesture, bade her close the entry-door.
"Now, what _is_ the matter? For the love o' Mike, one of you say!" she demanded for the third time, after she had obeyed.
The sharp ring of insistence in her voice seemed to pluck an answer out of Ma.
"As Heaven's me witness, Martha, I meant no harm," she whimpered peevishly.
"But to see me own son castin' black looks at me, as if he'd slay me----"